Building a New Russia: Can the "European Dream" be Beaten? Part 2

As an example, I’ll put forth the experience of nearly 20 years of residency of one of our compatriots in Germany and the experience of one of the former Soviet Germans who now works in one of the centers for integrating migrants into German society.

Why Germany? In order to avoid the arguments of opponents that I specifically chose to analyze some depressed region of Europe. Germany is the leading and one of the most prosperous EU countries, and this means that a standard can be drawn from it.

And so, with a dirty income of 2,600 euros a month, our female compatriot believes that it’s not bad for a migrant, and that such an income allows her to be relatively confident in the future and plan.

At the same time, the social system in Germany allows one to only slightly feel the difference between 2000 and 3000 euros of income per month. The poorer get larger social slices and the rich get less. Wages simultaneously grow with the growth of needs. The more prestigious work involves large costs for representation, such as clothes, a car, etc. All of this costs money.

Remarkable. In Germany, a society has been created in which basic needs are relatively inexpensive and its members who are in tough times, thanks to benefits and loyalty programs, receive things almost for free. This side of the coin is what beckons migrants to Germany. It is for this, in fact, that all the migrants from “Syria” have rushed there today.

Our second former compatriot who works with these migrants told me about how difficult it is for the latest flow of immigrants to integrate into Germany society. He believes that this is impossible except for the actual Syrians who, according to his own calculations, account for only 10% of the latest wave. 90%, or 1 million new "Germans", are a time bomb which will sooner or later lead to disaster. Before our conversation began, he busied himself with telling me about how he had chosen a self-defense weapon (a pistol). For him, everything is more than just theory.

But we have digressed. Let’s return to the economy. And so, the state is able and willing to offer basic needs to everyone, but everything else costs a lot of money. For example, obtaining rights for the children of our first compatriot cost on average 3,000 euros each. But this is a needed investment. If you want to give your kids a start in life or something with which they can lift themselves up to the next level in society, you have to save for your entire life.

Your life turns into a race for the dream. For one, this means one’s own home, for another, this means a prestigious and highly paid job. For the third, there is envisioning success for your children.

But it is for these pluses that the state does nothing, and it is quite expensive. As is business. Getting “to people” is very difficult. You can be hired as worker, but opening one's own work demands much more effort and losses than in the Homeland.

In the end, the “European dream” brings 90% of our former compatriots down to real life, and the bulk of this mass will earn as a maximum 300-500 euros a month, which they can spend on leisure, an annual holiday, or investments for the future.

In Germany, children are expensive, and this can bee seen as a pleasure or as an investment if you don’t count those “mommies” who see their children as tools for milking benefits and don’t invest anything in their development. In this case, children can even become sources of income. But this is a practice for Gypsies, Arabs, and Afghans, not our people.

What also attracts citizens of the former USSR to Europe is the sense of security. The law, which stands behind any stabile society, above everything else, was what was destroyed in the first place in Ukraine in 2014.

The creation of a new society

Breaking down this situation, the answer becomes clear to the question: “Why has the attractiveness of Europe in the eyes of Russian citizens dramatically fallen over the past few years and why does the Ukrainian population see it today as a last hope?”

Over the past few years, the Russian leadership has not only raised the real standard of living of its citizens, but has also begun to create confidence in tomorrow.

In 2013, the last year before the opening of confrontation between Russia and the US, the average salary in Russia exceeded 700 euros. Even in the depressed regions, it exceeded 500 euros.

To this are added the social services of the state which enabled families to save significantly not only for basic needs, but also for investments in the future. Society has obtained financial stability, security, and has lost the desire to seek a better life. As a consequence, the supporters of the liberal-Western course for the country’s development have quickly become marginalized in the Russian Federation.

Russia was quickly turning into a model standard of living and “standard” for its neighbors, which put at risk the whole plan for Russia's destruction. It rapidly became independent independent in domestic and foreign policy, and voiced and began to successfully implement integration projects within both greater (from Lisbon to Beijing) and smaller (from Uzhgorod to Vladivostok) Eurasia.

Russia was aided in this process by the deterioration of the situation in Europe. I would not exclude that the Russian leadership also had a hand in this. Remember from the beginning of the article: “nothing personal, but from the best intentions.”

Exactly in the same way that the society of the former USSR disintegrated in the 1990’s-2000’s, the reverse process has begun. Hence why the US was in such a hurry to get its hands on Ukraine. They saw that time was working in Moscow’s favor and that waiting was no longer possible. The involvement of Ukrainian business, local elites, and even the oligarchy in integration processes and, most importantly, the creation for them of alternative and non-Western harbors for assembling capital - the exact opposite of this same scheme was what collapsed the USSR. And so they struck. The goal of the war in Ukraine and the sanctions against Russia was turning this all around. Russia was supposed to cease to be a source of stability and confidence for its citizens, and an impassable moat was supposed to be dug between the peoples of the former Soviet countries.

No, not the one on which Yatsenyuk earned his millions, but one dug in the minds of Soviet citizens.

In general, the scheme of struggle is clear, and it is time to draw conclusions.

Conclusion

It is obvious that the turning point in this war will be the construction of a society in the post-Soviet space whose members will be considered more equal and comfortable than in European society. This is a complex task including the creation of new criteria for evaluating “prosperity.”

It is becoming all the more difficult to measure the convenience and quality of life using GDP and other similar parameters, even with taking into account various adjustments for purchasing power, etc.

All of this eventually leads to the creation of a new kind of matrix which should be simple and convenient to the point that the population itself, without the help of “analysts” and “interpreters,” can assess how they live, whether worse or better than in Europe.

The run “back to the Empire” will begin only when the myth of a bright European future will be dispelled in the consciousness of the post-Soviet countries’ populations, and Russia will be seen as an alternative for which we should strive. Any union built on different principles will be a sham, short-lived, and will only lead to more, larger problems in the future. This is exactly how the empire was destroyed, and how it can be reassembled.

Of course, this will be something new, and not a rehashing of the old. It will be something new in which the question of “life in Europe” will not even be posed because it would be absurd. Just as absurd as the overwhelming majority of modern and contemporary history.